Liberty City LGBT Democratic Club was founded in fall 1994 and ever since has served as the only lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Democratic political organization in Philadelphia. One of our primary purposes is to harness the political power of LGBT communities to get officials elected who are good on our issues and who will support the advancement of our communities.
In the past year, there have been quite a few changes within Liberty City that we would like to share, as well as some of the exciting directions we are going in. I was elected as the new male-identified co-chair of the organization in the spring of this year after serving on the board of directors for the past few years. Shortly after I came on as the co-chair, Adah Bush, the female-identified co-chair, had to resign her position due to mounting work commitments. The board of directors and I would like to thank Adah for all the hard work she put into the organization in her time as a board member and co-chair.
Moving forward organizationally, the board has started to lay the groundwork for improving the infrastructure of the club so we can strengthen the work and effectiveness of Liberty City. On Sept. 10, we held a membership retreat, where we conducted a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats analysis to examine what we are doing well and what we need to improve. At this retreat, we also discussed ideas to re-energize the various committees that comprise the organization’s structure. Within the next few months, a synopsis of the retreat will be available to our membership.
As we move toward increasing the presence of Liberty City in Philadelphia’s LGBT communities, we have started to enhance our communications. We have recently launched a redesigned website, which can be found at www.libertycity.org. Here you can find candidate questionnaires dating back to 2003, our current endorsements and our committees, among other things. We have also created a Facebook page: We encourage you to “like” us so you can be kept up to date on the organization.
Another priority for Liberty City is to increase the transparency with which we operate. On our new website, you will be able to find all of our campaign finance reports dating back to 2000, and soon you will be able to find the minutes from our board of directors’ meetings too. In addition to the September retreat, we will have other mechanisms in which organization members can give us feedback about our work.
The final priority of the organization is to increase the diversity of our membership, including people of color, women and transgender persons. We are currently working on strategies to create greater inroads to these communities to increase their involvement.
This is an exciting time for Liberty City and we hope you will join us to increase the political power of Philadelphia’s Democratic LGBT communities. There are several ways you can get involved: Become a member of the organization, join a committee of the organization, volunteer during our get-out-the-vote efforts in the fall and spring, or make a monetary contribution to the organization. You can find information on our website.
I invite you to join us for our next event, a fall fundraiser, from 6-8 p.m. Nov. 1 at Stir, 1705 Chancellor St. Please join us, make a contribution, meet candidates and learn more about the work of Liberty City.